Now is the time of year when most companies are going through the agonies of budgeting. In some ways it is the most important annual process in a business: in others it is corporate ritual at its bleakest.

Everyone in the organisation is trying to manipulate the numbers for their own purposes. It becomes a sort of high stakes game. The executives want the bar set low so they under-promise and over-deliver, and thus get juicy bonuses. The non-executives want a demanding target so the performance incentives are suitably testing. Analysts want a big number so they can tout the stock. And the whole economic system revolves around the notion of perpetual growth. Perhaps not just the financial world - perhaps human existence itself needs a belief in progress: the opposite is too stark a reminder of decrepitude and death.